Glyph/Jam Stunna: Jam Starts!

[DtJ Glyphmoney]

DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD UNLESS YOUR NAME IS IN THE TITLE!

Okay! All of these threads have the same OP so don't worry about reading over the other ones. This is a very straightforward concept, you just take turns writing a story. There are a few rules I'd like to set in order to make this as effective as possible.

1. NO OUTSIDE COMMUNICATION. This is a BIG rule. I want to see every little bit of the story's development in this thread. And no, talking about it on AIM and posting a log is not okay.
2. There is no out of context. Everything you put in here becomes part of the story you're telling. That means if you break down and get mad at your partner and cuss him out, one of the two of you will have to find a way to justify that happening.
3. Don't be a ****. Don't go out of your way to ruin other people's stories. In the same fashion, don't be 100% dedicated to only getting what you want done too.
4. Don't write a novel each post. This rule was something I had a hard time with since I am trying to make this as free range as possible. Just don't overwhelm your partner with more story than they can handle is what I'm getting at.

Knowing myself, I've forgotten some rule again. Refrain from posting in this thread until you're planning to start the story.

 

[Jam Stunna]

A Way of Life
by Jam Stunna & Glyph

Tahira swallowed hard. A permanent lump had formed in her throat, like a diamond lodged in her esophagus to match the one she wore on her ring finger. She sipped a cup of coffee as she went over her mental checklist again. It had all been taken care of and paid off months ago, but it had become part of her after lunch routine to fret over what was already done. Coffee, checklist, cigarette. The guest list was finalized. The mosque was reserved for Eid ul-Fitr, August 19th. Family from as far away as Riyadh had flown in and were jammed into homes all over the city. The food preparations had already begun. Tahira replaced the empty cup at her lips with a cigarette. Everything was in order. She just wished she loved her fiancé.

 

[DtJ Glyphmoney]

Miles below Tahira, her fiancé was wracked with a different sort of stress. The relationship between the Mole-People and the Overheaders had always been a complex one, but being the poster boy for the first marriage between the two was a daunting trial to face. Deep down Tork knew he still loved Tahira, but the whole situation felt...dirty, somehow. Like the wedding wasn't on the terms he wanted it to be. He paced the cool metal floor of his room and absentmindedly played with the zipper of his pale blue jumpsuit.

"Its a different world up there." He reminded himself. "They got rules. Fancy buildings. And a whooole lot of ignorance to boot."

Tork thought back to his first venture to the surface, where most of the people he encountered were astounded to find he was not in fact half mole.

"I'm just as good as those fools."

Tork sat down on his bed and looked down at the photo Tahira had given him those long two years ago.

"Every damn bit."

 

[Jam Stunna]

The ashes from Tahira's cigarette fell onto the table below, smearing in a grey streak across a picture of Tork. She let it burn down to the filter as she looked down at her fiancé. As a young woman, she'd been proud that her family served mole-people in their restaurant. Her father had taught her not to call them mole-people, but sub-terrans. "Because they don't look like moles," he'd explained. "They don't burrow through dirt. They're not blind." And it was true. Tork was a handsome man. His skin was nearly translucent, like all sub-terrans, but he had blue eyes instead of the usual red. When they'd met, she was fascinated by the contrast between his skin and his eyes.

She focused on his eyes as she dusted the picture off. Would they still be blue after two years below? She jammed the picture into her purse and left her parent's home. They were to meet at the subterranean entrance behind Famous Ray's Chicken, the one no one else on the surface knew about. Tahira had become infamous for her family's choice of husband for her. Some people congratulated her, and some cursed her, but they all stared. That was the worst, their silent glares burning into her as she imagined the sun burned into Tork.

Famous Ray's was packed with customers as usual, too busy eating to notice her black compact park around back. She reached for her makeup first, then the picture of Tork. Would he like her makeup? Did such things exist in his world? So many questions about him and his life. A lifetime to ask them. She sighed.

A knock on her window startled her. A man in an apron covered in grease was looking into the car. "Can I help you?" she mouthed to him. His eyes were hidden beneath a shaggy mop of brown hair, but she could feel it. The glare.

"Aren't you that bitch who's marrying a mole man?" he yelled. She didn't reply. Her hand shot towards the ignition, but he'd already smashed out her window. His food-caked hand wrapped around her throat as she dug her nails into his forearm. The door swung open, and her head smashed into the concrete. There was no pain at first. She felt fuzzy, only dimly aware that she was being dragged by her hair away from her car and the restaurant. Towards the subterranean entrance. Where Tork was supposed to be.

She screamed. He punched her in the face. She screamed again. He stomped on her chest. She gasped for air, desperately trying to gather enough breath for another scream. There was something in his other hand. Something silver, and big. The entrance was so close. She thought she heard Tork yelling from inside of it. Did she? She'd forgotten what he sounded like.

No, it was the man yelling. At her. Accusations. Obscenities. Threats. Questions. It was all a jumble of noise trying to penetrate her foggy mind. The pain began, but not in her head. It was in her stomach. Sharp, then gone. Then again. And again. And again. She saw the flash of the knife as it plunged into her. She was counting them. Seven. Thirteen. Twenty one. He stopped at twenty nine, screaming not at her this time, but at something approaching. No, someone. The pain had cut through to her clouded brain, a knife in its own right. It was unbearable. She tasted blood and bile frothing up in her mouth.

Then she saw him. He was wearing all black. Pants, gloves, a hood. All she could see were his blue eyes. She could hear something distant, his voice? It had been him yelling. He sounded as far away now as he did in the entrance. She couldn't hear the words. Her head, her stomach, they pounded too loudly. Throbbing. Beneath the pain and the cold, as her life drained away into the cracked earth beneath her, she felt a surge of happiness. At her escape from Tork? Or because he was there? She didn't know. She simply felt happy.

"But why?" she asked as her eyes closed.

 

[DtJ Glyphmoney]

The next few weeks passed in a blur. Tork could remember little flashes; a funeral, meetings with civil rights leaders, blurbs on the news predicting war... but none of it mattered. He was still standing at that gateway, watching everything he had ever wanted bleed out onto the ground.

The killer's identity was exposed mere days after the ordeal. His red eyes told the whole story.

"We ain't these ****ers livestock anymore! We need to fight for what we deserve, take it with our own hands!"

His quote split the mole-people community like a chasm. Some still believed that a peaceful union with the Overheaders was possible, but even they were bracing for a war. They couldn't afford not to. Supporters of both sides begged Tork to join their cause. He had become the face of the mole-people, and his opinion held massive sway over the masses both above and below ground. They sent him gifts, and when those failed they turned to threats. Tork found a bitter irony in how their actions were little more than a repeat of what happened when he first was set to marry Tahira, but like then, he refused to be swayed.

At least, that was what he told himself. Deep down he knew that he was just lost. He didn't have the answer to what they should do as a people, and he just wanted to be left alone. But they would never stop, not until he signed up to one of their ideologies or he was dead.